TICK SUPPLEMENT: Tick Management: An Emerging Market

P ublic health is an area of great interest to Aventis Environmental Science — our company has been involved with public health issues for more than 100 years. And Aventis is dedicated to helping the pest management industry help its customers to combat pests and pest-related diseases.

To that end, in early February, Aventis Environmental Science and PCT magazine hosted a “Tick Symposium” in Jacksonville, Fla., which was attended by leading pest management professionals and researchers. During two days of presentations, attendees learned about tick-borne diseases, the challenges facing public health officials and pest management professionals, successful tick control methods and an update on tick research.

This program, which featured speakers from throughout the United States, helped some of the country’s most progressive pest management professionals learn more about one of the most significant public health threats in their area of the country — ticks.

Aventis has done some research of homeowners and pest management professionals about tick management and Lyme disease. Consider the following:
•  Most people in the Northeast have (or know someone who has)  Lyme disease.
•  Consumers want to take action against tick-borne diseases but they don’t know what to do.
•  65 percent of those PCOs who offer tick control do so only when requested. Only 25 have customers who are on a regular tick-management program.
•  In areas with a high risk of Lyme disease, 25 percent have sprayed pesticides in the past. But 70 percent are unwilling to do so in the future.
•  More than 50 percent of homeowners felt there was a high risk of Lyme disease in their own backyard. About 33 percent felt there was a very high risk.
•  About 50 percent of homeowners felt they were knowledgeable about Lyme disease. Fifty percent were concerned about Lyme disease.

In light of these statistics, since 1999, Aventis and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been working together to develop a tick control product, called the Maxforce Tick Control System, which we hope will receive EPA approval in the next several months.

Lyme disease is one of the most well-known public health threats in the Northeast and we think this is an emerging market for the professional pest management industry. There are many misconceptions about tick-borne diseases and tick management, but we think that customer education via the pest management industry will equate to new business for you, the pest management professional.

This eight-page supplement features stories based on the presentations at the Tick Symposium. I hope the stories on the following pages will offer you a glimpse of the program and perhaps open the world of tick management to your pest management firm. 

Michael McDermott
Vice President, Professional Products
Aventis Environmental Science